• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Holy fuck, I never knew Breath Of The Wild was going to be THIS good.

DonJorginho

Banned
I love Zelda games, I remember my days playing through Twilight Princess as a kid and then discovering classics like OoT and Majora's Mask, I still reminisce on the days I spent experiencing Wind Waker with my older sister on her Gamecube and being amazed by the artstyle and world. I should have been all over BOTW, but it never resonated with me leading up to launch, I was sick of the Open World genre and nothing of this game reminded me of that charm I fell in love with as a child, reviews were glowing and fan reception was some of the most positive ever seen, yet on launch I decided to pick up just Super Mario Odyssey and never picked up BOTW, it just didn't interest me and I saw the reviews as your typical overexaggerating for when a series switches up it's formula.

The years that followed I saw BOTW win many GOTY awards, as well as receive praise from not only my friend groups but the entire gaming world alike, yet I still felt no willingness to give the game a go, I watched gameplay but it never quite gripped me, people asked me of my thoughts of the game and I used to lie and be like "oh yeah it's good" without even putting the cartridge into my Switch and giving it a go, I was just too ashamed to admit I hadn't given a game that seemed like the second coming of Christ a chance rather immaturely. I watched countless reviews from people I trusted and saw people I respected in forums wax lyrically about how special this game was, yet I laughed it off and saw it as Zelda meets Ubisoft Open World Template.

Boy was I wrong.

You may remember I recently picked up a Wii U after selling my switch last year, and after seeing so much praise for it, I decided to finally give this game a chance, I let the seller know I would likely return it the next day as I doubted it would grab me, I had walked into this game expecting to gloat about how right I was and how I was ahead of the curve for my judgement on this game, but now 7 hours in, this is shaping up to be one of, if not the greatest games I have ever had the joy of playing.

No game has ever given me this sense of freedom, this level of trust from the developers to truly do whatever you choose to, whilst giving you all the tools to achieve the goals the game sets out in a rewarding manner without making it too easy or too challenging. The game didn't click at first, but it was about halfway through the Great Plateau when I was looking for a way to traverse the cold to get to a shrine, I had tried many methods, failing almost everytime, when I read the description of the Spicy Peppers I picked up earlier, and it clicked to me what I had to do. I found some Bokoblins around a cooking pot and decided to experiment with some cooking after I had killed them all (only a few deaths to a blue fucker halted my cooking session). I then threw some ingredients into the pot and boom, a meal that offered me cold resistance, I felt a sense of accomplishment as I surpassed the point where I would die almost everytime on my journey to the shrine and felt proud of my development from aimlessly walking into my demise time and time again to start with to successfully reaching the shrine using my own intuition, without any in your face game tips or offers to make the experience easy for the user.

This is a very minor example of the freedom the game offers the player, I have taken on enemy encounters in so many unique ways, experimenting with the physics systems, my weaponry and rune abilities as well as seeing how enemies react to certain situations, watching a Hoblin throw his friend at me in a last ditch aim to kill me when he was low on health made my jaw drop, the AI isn't next level in some ways with how enemies will just forget about you when feet away and dance like idiots or not see you when you're in clear view only to spot you when you're hiding, but when it works as intended, it really shows and makes the player sit up and take note.

I have heard many frustrated players rant about the breaking weapons and was expecting to hate that aspect with myself being a very big anti-survival game kinda person, but I adored how the weapons breaking made you have to think on your feet and look for smarter solutions, to experiment with other weaponry or look for things in the environment you could use to gain an advantage for yourself. It was just magical thinking "can I do this?" to laugh and say as if they would be that clever and then low and behold, it would actually work as I wanted it to. Yes other games have handled aspects of BOTW better with their games, but this is such a great amalgamation of all the big hitters in the Open World genre, and for Nintendo's first real foray into this genre, it is a home run of a title they have delivered.

The Wii U has it's issues performance wise but the framedrops have been few and far between for me and the game has an artstyle which really covers up blemishes of the system's age or crappy textures/resolutions. I do wish the gamepad was made more useful as looking at early footage this was definitely the case before they made the devs seemingly remove these systems to not allow it to overshadow the port for the new and shiny switch, but such minor annoyances don't stop me from loving this game for what it has been so far, a fucking masterpiece.

I regret not picking this up earlier, being so naïve and childish with my unjustified dislike towards this game for no reason seemingly, I wish I had the head on my shoulders then that I do now to give this game a chance, as this has been without a doubt so far, one of the best gaming experiences of my life.

I do apologise for the ramble-like nature of this post, but this is the first time in so long a game has really amazed me like this and changed my perception on a genre in such a small period of time, I can't wait for my 2 weeks off work starting tomorrow to dive back into this amazing game and see what other crazy shit I can do, places I can discover and experiments I can try.

It is so great when a game proves you wrong huh?

2CEYoz6.jpg
 
Last edited:

DonJorginho

Banned
I'm glad you liked it.

I hated the durability system.
I can see why, it can be frustrating how quickly weapons break but I feel like you get weaponry and shields at such a steady pace that you never feel yourself missing the ones that broke before and it forces you to try things, unlike some games that allow you to get too comfortable with one proven way and cheesing your way to the end with it.

Maybe a slider to turn it off could have helped those like yourself who really hated it.
 
Last edited:

MiguelItUp

Member
Glad you're enjoying it! I was getting a kick out of it for awhile. Started grinding dungeons and then I just put it down and never picked it back up. Guess I got burnt out as I had probably put in 20-30 hours at that point give or take.

I'd still like to one of these days.
 
Last edited:
I have heard many frustrated players rant about the breaking weapons and was expecting to hate that aspect with myself being a very big anti-survival game kinda person, but I adored how the weapons breaking made you have to think on your feet and look for smarter solutions, to experiment with other weaponry or look for things in the environment you could use to gain an advantage for yourself. It was just magical thinking "can I do this?" to laugh and say as if they would be that clever and then low and behold, it would actually work as I wanted it to. Yes other games have handled aspects of BOTW better with their games, but this is such a great amalgamation of all the big hitters in the Open World genre, and for Nintendo's first real foray into this genre, it is a home run of a title they have delivered.

BotW went on the side of "give lots of weapons, have them break quickly" side of weapons durability for that reason. You can keep grabbing them as much as you want with how they drop, but you can also just ignore them and play around. That's best for player freedom.

Have fun with the Korok seeds.

Literally the shittiest sidequest.
 

Portugeezer

Member
Some people don't like that the open world was a bit barren, but I like when a game has peaceful areas and doesn't have crap littered around every corner. I like being able to gather my thoughts and think about the world around me, it adds to the mystery of a world and every encounter feels more meaningful.

Sometimes more is less.

Not to say BOTW doesn't have a lot to do, it does, but the world is so large, there is a lot of geometry between you doing something meaningful (luckily the traversal feels great in this game).
 

DonJorginho

Banned
Some people don't like that the open world was a bit barren, but I like when a game has peaceful areas and doesn't have crap littered around every corner. I like being able to gather my thoughts and think about the world around me, it adds to the mystery of a world and every encounter feels more meaningful.

Sometimes more is less.

Not to say BOTW doesn't have a lot to do, it does, but the world is so large, there is a lot of geometry between you doing something meaningful (luckily the traversal feels great in this game).
Fully agree, open worlds being littered with things round every corner is always something that wears me down (looking at you Ubisoft). It was a nice change of pace to see an open world respect the need for exploration without level gating areas or shoehorning you down a certain route or way of playing.
 

Shai-Tan

Banned
If you mean emulation on PC, its really good with this game, i could 4k/60 it. It also had some built in cheats you could do, like get rid of the always annoying durability system.
Thanks. I thought I had a WiiU with Breath of the Wild somewhere in a box but I checked and it’s a Wii with Twilight Princess. I know my brother has all the Nintendo stuff so I’ll just pretend the “backup copy” I download is of the one sitting in a box gathering dust at his house.
 

phil_t98

#SonyToo
Really enjoyed this game, yeah a bit repetitive at times but was fun. Never collected all the seeds but did a fair amount of them. I didn’t like the dark trees bit that annoyed me but everything else was pretty solid. The bows and sword thing as well was a bit meh
 
so did you beat the game? I felt amazed by it as well for the first 5-10 hours, but then the illusion fades and you realize it's repetetiive and a lot of the systems are annoying. Poorly made dungeons, breakable weapons, poor sense of progression imo, very little enemy variety, very little incentive to engage in battle, very little variety in what you find in the world.

The game is good, but I'd say like 8/10, I think if they improve on the above it could be a classic. The story also needs to be way more engaging. I want classic Zelda equipment as well, and classic dungeons. Ah, the more I rant the more I feel this is actually a 7/10 game, but a 10/10 game if you only play it for 5 hours
 

SLB1904

Banned
Is emulation for this game good? The last Zelda I played was Link to the Past (the snes one)
its amazing. i tried a couple years ago when they unlocked the framerate, unfortunately there was a frame pacing issue that kept me from playing. now everything is smooth out and loads of graphics options
 

gow3isben

Member
That Ubisoft Greek BoTW clone was shit for me. Hated it. Stopped 40% in.

Is this one much better? Was considering buying it as I’m about to get a switch.
 

Sybrix

Member
Its one of the best games ive ever played.

I've never played a Zelda game before, i bought the Switch because of this game based of the trailers and how amazing it looked and i wasn't disappointed.

Ive seen alot of people hate on it and usually the people that hate on it hate games like RDR2 where there is a lot of travelling and nothing happening which some people hate, i however love it and feel so engaged in the game world during these moments, this makes BOTW so good.
 

sainraja

Member
If you mean emulation on PC, its really good with this game, i could 4k/60 it. It also had some built in cheats you could do, like get rid of the always annoying durability system.
If you can't answer this due to rules I will understand, but how do I get it on the PC? (I own the game on the Wii U & Switch.)
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom